Teaching Children to Care

This Sunday is World Wildlife Day, the perfect time to celebrate the many beautiful animals and plants on our planet as well as a time to raise awareness of the many benefits they provide to people and the need to preserve them for future generations.

This year, the theme for World Wildlife Day is “Life below water: for people and planet”. The ocean contains nearly 200,000 identified species (actual numbers may be in the millions) and over three billion people depend on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihoods.

Marine wildlife has provided so much to sustain human civilization, but importantly it has also enriched our lives culturally, spiritually, and recreationally. You can learn more about World Wildlife Day 2019 herehttp://wildlifeday.org

World Wildlife Day also provides a great opportunity to take some time to read about sea creatures and the ocean with your children and to talk about how we can take care of it for future generations. Take a look at the list of great reads below to get you started.

The Big Book of the Blue by Yuval Zommer

Alongside everything the young oceanographer needs to know, Zommer’s charming illustrations bring to life some of the slipperiest, scaliest, strangest, and most monstrous underwater animals.

The book opens by explaining how different types of animals are able to breathe and survive underwater, and the different families to which they belong. Subsequent pages are dedicated to specific creatures, including sea turtles, whales, sharks, stingrays, and seahorses, and show varied life in specific habitats, such as a coral reef or deep-sea bed.

The Big Book of the Blue also explores the underwater world thematically, looking at animals in danger, learning how to spot creatures at the beach, and discovering how to do our part to save sea life. Beautiful and filled with fascinating facts, young, curious readers won’t be able to tear their eyes away from the page.

The Ocean Book by Esther Gonstalla

The Ocean Book is full of easy-to-read, beautiful infographics that present the key issues facing our oceans. Rising sea levels, growing rubbish patches and overfishing are putting our oceans in grave danger. Though we love our oceans, we must learn to cherish them. This book will help readers realize how we cause the problems and how we can solve them.

Let’s Explore…Ocean by Lonely Planet Kids

Let’s Explore Ocean takes you under the waves and into a whole other world. Dress the explorers in their diving gear, learn how to make a submarine-style periscope, decorate reefs with colourful coral, and loads more. An undersea adventure awaits. Let’s explore! Includes over 250 stickers. Perfect for on-the-road entertainment.

DK Eyewitness Books: Ocean by Miranda Macquilty

Dive in and discover the watery world covering most of our earth and the amazing wildlife in its depths in Eyewitness: Oceans. Through images, maps and informative text learn about life on the shore to the darkest depths of the ocean floor, including predators and prey, gas and oil exploration, products of the ocean, brave explorers and what the human race can do to help preserve one of the earth’s most valuable resources.

Ultimate Oceanpedia: The Most Complete Ocean Reference Ever by Christina Wilsdon

From tsunamis and sea turtles to riptides and reefs, learn all about the creatures, science, and ecology of our oceans, which cover more of the planet than all the continents and are just as important! Travel through all parts of the ocean to learn how it effects of our world, including storms and climate. Amazing facts, photos, illustrations, and diagrams are found throughout this book, along with conservation tips, weird-but-true facts, and a mini ocean atlas. Challenges to the health of our ocean and its creatures are also presented along with what people are doing to keep it pristine for generations to come.